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- 8 May 2007
Inaugural Speech of the Member for Blue Mountains
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Mr PHILIP KOPERBERG (Blue Mountains—Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) [7.47 p.m.] (Inaugural Speech): Mr Speaker, I congratulate you on your election to that august post. I commend my colleague Nathan Rees for his very fine inaugural speech. Recognising the privilege afforded to me on this occasion, I rise to deliver my inaugural speech and thank members present for their indulgence. The purpose of the inaugural speech by members has been variously described to me as an opportunity to provide biographical detail, espouse one's philosophy in one discipline or another, recite history, make a point, support an ideology, pay tribute to current and past colleagues or simply introduce oneself.
Rarely do members of our society have the opportunity to be placed on the public record in such a comprehensive manner. That privilege is not lost on me and I will endeavour not to abuse it. Mr Speaker and members, whilst I may touch on all of these opportunities, my principal aim on this occasion is to pay tribute to the men and women with whom I have worked in public service for more than 40 years. I will also take the opportunity to acknowledge that Australia remains a country of enormous opportunity for all. However, we are facing a considerable challenge in climate change, and it is one we must meet with the courage of our convictions and the creativity of our ideas.
Going back a little in time, I have vivid memories of my arrival in this country—it was December, I think—in 1953 at Darwin. We, and many hundreds more Dutch, had exited Indonesia somewhat hurriedly during the period that followed Indonesian independence. If my memory serves me correctly, in the space of a day my parents had a choice of boarding an aircraft bound for The Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom or Australia. My parents chose wisely to board a Qantas aeroplane bound for Darwin, Australia. In the subsequent years we lived in Bathurst, Blackheath in the Blue Mountains and various parts of the Illawarra, where I spent much of my adolescence. They were, as Charles Dickens would say, the best of times and the worst of times. Often there would not be enough money to put food on the table, yet one Christmas my dear late mother somehow managed to produce two brand-new Malvern Star bicycles for my brother and me even though there was not enough money to buy anything for her. Bless her.
After the Second World War my family found itself in Indonesia. My years in Indonesia were largely spent in the rich rainforests and jungles of Sumatra and Java, where I developed an early affinity with many aspects of nature. I have many wonderful and vivid memories of monkeys running around on the front lawn and, indeed, on the sideboard in our house as they strove to help themselves to the fruit often stored there. Fourteen years after my arrival in Australia I would find myself in a different type of bushland, first becoming involved in a way of life known to many Australians: bush fire fighting. In 1967 we moved to the Blue Mountains, where I have lived ever since and where I was first approached to join an iconic organisation: an Australian bush fire brigade. The captain of the North Springwood Bushfire Brigade, the late Frank Martin, mentored me in the way of fire in the Australian bushland. I very quickly became inspired by the selflessness of those who gave their all, often at considerable risk, to protect the people of the Blue Mountains from the ravages of a frequent visitor: an Australian bushfire.
The inherent risk was demonstrated starkly to me on the afternoon of 28 November 1968_one of the darkest days in Blue Mountains fire history_when three of my fellow brigade members, Greg Elly, Tom Chalmers and Peter Hawkins, were trapped to the north of White Cross by a ferocious fire in which they were to perish. The gravity of what had occurred weighed heavily on the whole community but the fight to protect lives and property went on, with only little time to reflect upon the tragedy that had befallen our volunteer colleagues. To me it epitomised the spirit of Anzac. Against all odds, people from all walks of life fought to protect what was dear to others, with little thought of what might befall them. In those days volunteer firefighters routinely lost their lives. In fact, in the years between 1970 and 1980 an average of three volunteer firefighters in New South Wales made the supreme sacrifice annually.
Tonight as this Fifty-fourth Parliament convenes we can celebrate the fact that the level of casualty amongst our brave volunteer emergency service workers has declined considerably. Work done by successive governments, but particularly by the Carr-Iemma governments post-1994, when some 1,200 fires wreaked widespread damage across our State, has resulted in our bush fire fighting capacity being second to none in the world. The NSW Rural Fire Service, NSW Fire Brigades, the State Emergency Service, Forests NSW, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Volunteer Rescue Association are now part of a rational, cohesive and integrated emergency management system. It has no equal anywhere and is the envy of many. These organisations are now amongst the best trained, best equipped and most disciplined in the world_and the bulk of them remain volunteers! Whether volunteer or salaried, their professionalism and their skill is their common bond.
I pay tribute to some people I have worked with. From my early years as the district fire manager of the Blue Mountains, between 1970 and 1982, many people spring to mind as having made a contribution towards the evolution of the bush fire fighting movement in this State. Prominent amongst them are the late Vince Ward and Kevin Grady; Bob Schofield, the then district manager at Hornsby; Lionel Smith, the then district manager at Baulkham Hills; and many others whom I am precluded from recalling in this speech due to the constraint of time. With the advent of the NSW Rural Fire Service following the Government's adoption of many of the recommendations of the John Hyatt inquiry into the 1994 fires, I again had the privilege of working with thousands of volunteers. In the Rural Fire Service alone there are some 70,000 volunteers and staff who, collectively, have made a wonderful contribution to the safety of communities across the State, as have their colleagues in the other services that I have already mentioned.
Trevor Anderson, Shane Fitzsimmons, Ross Smith, Tony Howe, Rob Rogers, Bruce Holtz, Keith Harrap, Jane Hollier, Marianne Carmichael and Keith Simpson are just some of the many who hold or have held executive positions within the Rural Fire Service and have contributed enormously to the place that the service now enjoys in the global network of emergency management. As I recall, Bernard Dowling was the district fire manager in the Blue Mountains who preceded me. It was he who persuaded me to change my vocation and to accept a salaried position within the bushfire movement. I think I am indebted to him.
I want also to pay tribute to the heads, past and present, and members of the other emergency services with whom I have had the privilege of working for some 21 years and beyond. Commissioner Greg Mullins, Director-General Brigadier Phil MacNamara, Acting Commissioner Rob Rogers, Major-General Horrie Howard, Commissioner Ian McDougall, Brian Gilligan, former Director General, National Parks and Wildlife Service, and Dr Tony Fleming, current head of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, have all made enormous contributions to fire and emergency management in this State. Richard Lyons, Director, Office of Emergency Services, and his staff are also people to whom I am indebted for their ability, inter alia, to turn fanciful ambition into achievable objectives. I owe an enormous amount of debt to Mark Aarons, former deputy chief of staff to Bob Debus, one of the great environment Ministers of this Government. I owe him a debt for his mentoring of me in matters of the environment and for persuading me to join this place.
I am indebted to my children, Stephen and Elizabeth, for their unwavering support during my long emergency services career. I am proud that my son, Stephen, and my daughter's partner, John Paul, are serving members with the New South Wales Fire Brigades. It says something that they joined the urban fire brigade whilst I ran the rural fire brigade. Obviously they were not going to have me inflicted upon them. I have had the honour of working with many fine Ministers, 12 in all, to whom I owe various degrees of gratitude for their support. But it would be remiss of me if I were not to acknowledge the stewardship in particular of Ministers such as Peter Anderson, the first Minister for whom I worked, Bob Debus and Tony Kelly. Each had a vision that accommodated the rapid transformation of fire and emergency management organisations and catapulted them into the twenty-first century.
I turn now to the present. I am very thankful for the privilege of being an elected member of this place and for the confidence shown in me by my parliamentary colleagues and the Premier. My tribute would not be complete were I not to express my profound appreciation to members of my electorate for their confidence in me, and to the team that so ably assisted me during the campaign. Mr Mick Fell, my campaign director, was a constant source of encouragement—and boy did I need some encouragement! He displayed great skill and commitment during those long tiring days. To the hundreds of volunteers and branch members I simply want to say, "Thank you." I will do my best to ensure that their confidence in me was not misplaced. John Derum, Claire Steward and Trish Doyle are just three of many people who provided invaluable support and assistance to me both during the campaign and ever since.
To be a member of a Government committed to the values of social justice, industrial relations equity, education and environmental management is a privilege I never expected to enjoy. I want to pay tribute to my current staff members who have been with me for only a matter of weeks, and whom I now regard as family, for their inspiration, their guidance, their mentoring and their very wise counsel. To be responsible for issues such as climate change, environment and water at a senior level would not have been possible in my wildest dreams. To be entrusted with a senior portfolio enabling a contribution, no matter how small, to meet a global challenge is as daunting as it is exciting. [Extension of time agreed to.]
The global community has one last chance to ensure that future generations inherit a world in which they may still enjoy an environment fundamental to the wellbeing of the planet. The vast forests, the enormous numbers of animals and plant species, biodiversity, breathable air, drinkable water, sustainable agriculture and industry are but a few legacies that we are obliged to leave those who follow us. Our challenges are onerous and require a global response, but a global response can occur only if there is an individual commitment. Global warming and its consequences have to be addressed now. We owe it to our grandchildren and to our great grandchildren. We cannot, as past and current generations have, take for granted that the planet will continue to absorb the unsustainable demands we place on it.
The science is in. Whilst healthy scepticism has its place, the need to act is overwhelmingly supported by indisputable fact. It is a fact that past and current levels of CO2 emissions have resulted in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the order of 380 parts per million. If the world's best scientists are correct, a concentration of just 450 parts per million will result in there being a 95 per cent chance of global temperature increases of up to three degrees. The consequences of such increases in the earth's atmosphere are not issues that we ought to contemplate gladly. Over the last 600,000 years the highest that CO2 concentrations have ever been is of the order of 260 parts per million. Only twice in the last 600,000 have global temperatures been higher than they are now—once about 280,000 years ago and again about 110,000 years ago. But these events both preceded and succeeded ice ages.
Around 1900 AD about 13.5 million square kilometres of the earth's surface was covered by ice. In 2005 the area of the earth covered by sea ice has shrunk alarmingly to just 12 million square kilometres. I could continue quoting ad infinitum alarming facts from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] reports, the Stern report and Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth, but as a new member I would not inflict that upon members. I will leave the impenetrable speeches to later in my parliamentary career. The Iemma Government is committed to accepting and acting on its responsibility to be part of the global solution to a potentially catastrophic situation. That will be my core business as Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water. The challenge ahead is to ensure that we work in unison with science, agriculture and industry. We want to achieve outcomes that address the preservation of the environment whilst at the same time sustaining both primary and secondary industry.
In short, our challenge is to protect the environment whilst the economy continues to thrive. A robust economy need not be at the expense of our environment. Indeed, I strongly hold the belief that a weak and depleted environment almost certainly dictates that our economy will inevitably fail. Neither of those outcomes is at all palatable. The focus of my every working day as Minister will be to continue to argue the case that it is not an either/or end game on the economy and the environment. The two can go, have gone, and will continue to go hand in glove. I state unequivocally: A healthy and protected environment equals a strong and prosperous economy and a society for future generations to inherit. Former United States of America President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said:
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
JFK spoke these words more than four decades ago but they are prescient today in relation to the task ahead of us in turning back the tide on climate change. The environment is our most basic common link but too often through our actions we have inadvertently, or in some cases deliberately, been guilty of trying to sever this link. Tonight in this Chamber I declare that I will feel, when my time is up in this portfolio, that I have had considerable success if, when I leave it, there are fewer climate change sceptics in New South Wales.
But I will not engage in some sort of McCarthyistic witch-hunt—no, something far less dramatic. Simply, as Minister, I intend to argue persistently and cogently the case for climate change to continue to be a primary focus of our attentions and to help the people of New South Wales continue to change their behaviours on emissions. We cannot turn back the clock. We must still be able to turn on the switch and have light. We must still have heating. We must still have jobs and we must still be able to transport ourselves from place to place, and herein lies the challenge. We must neither be the generation that did nothing nor the generation that switches off the lights as the last to leave.
This Government is providing a lead in many areas. Our targets in terms of emissions reduction, renewable energy and water security are both meaningful and realistic, and that is why I am proud to be a member of this team. Together with the Premier, my Cabinet and caucus colleagues, my fellow members of Parliament and, above all, the people of New South Wales, I will work day in and day out to advance the cause of preparing us to deal with the climate change challenge. Our children deserve no less.
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